


Open Your Hand Wide

by opalmatrix



Category: Gentlemen of the Road - Michael Chabon
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Gen, Travel, charity - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:33:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29614344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/pseuds/opalmatrix
Summary: They are strangers sojourning in a strange land, even if it's theoretically their own, when they are approached by a younger sibling they didn't know they had.
Relationships: Amram (Gentlemen of the Road) & Zelikman (Gentlemen of the Road)
Kudos: 5
Collections: Purimgifts 2021





	Open Your Hand Wide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seekingferret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingferret/gifts).



> Dear recipient, you wanted a surprise. So I used a little randomness here. Prompts: Devarim 15:11 - "You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor, and to your needy ...." + (random words) "cheer, bribe, bewitch, wretched, square, burial, tree, wax."

Amram sat on a heap of stone, likely debris from one of the many walls that had encircled the holy city in some age or other. Behind him on the stony sand that passed for soil hereabout was all the gear belonging to both the Ethiopian and his partner. Although they trusted the master of the caravansary where they had slept not to sell off something as hard to miss as their horses, small items from their baggage were something else.

The weather was mild for the middle of winter, by their standards. The sky was cloudy and the air soft. Amram thought that they might have rain tonight, and the thought stirred a modicum of cheer in his heart, although he wondered at it. Perhaps he had already caught the locals' opinion, which was that rain on the sandy ground was always welcome.

He could see Zelikman, easy to spot with his gangling height and rich black hat, peering at the goods for sale in the market that spilled carelessly downhill from the Ashpot Gate, spread along both side of the SIloam road. A few actual shops were set back from the road, hardly more than hovels but clean enough, by the standards of gentlemen of the road. Most of the business was taking place at rickety stalls or even on mats or blankets spread on the ground, set up around three sides of a rough square whose forth part was the road itself. In the distance was a roughly walled burial ground.

Amram was not so bewitched by the sight that he could fail to notice a small, stealthy scrabbling behind him. "Leave that," he said, in a voice deep and full of menace. He spoke in Arabic, which tongue most in the region seemed to comprehend.

"Pardon, lord. I hunger."

Food was one of the things that Zelikman was meant to be buying, but Amram still had some dates and shelled almonds, bought along the road to the city. "Come around before me, then," he said.

The would-be thief was a wretched urchin, a set of tatters and rags wrapped around a spindly frame that might have been a dark, miniature model of Zelikman. There was no telling whether it was a boy or a girl, and it might have had any number of years from seven to ten "Here, take them," said Amram, holding out the nuts and fruit in the palm of his large hand.

Like a chick pecking in the dust, a small hand darted out, snatched most of the food, and instantly stuffed half of the takings into the child's mouth. The little wretch chewed fiercely, a trail of saliva laying a cleaner track on the grubby, bony chin. "Don't choke," admonished Amram, automatically. He could see Zelikman crossing the road and approaching, a heavy sack dangling from one hand and a bouquet of wooden skewers threaded with meat and vegetables in the other.

"You have company," observed Amram's partner. The urchin pivoted on its filthy, bare feet and hurried removed itself from the reach of either man.

"A hungry wretch," said Amram. "The food was in the way of a bribe, so the creature would stop examining our baggage."

Zelikman's gaze went over the child, sharp and unsparing, from head to toes. Amram, used to his partner's ways, knew that the pale eyes had noticed the sores around the urchin's mouth, the bony wrists and ankles, a darkness that might have been a bruise along one cheek. Zelikman passed Amram his purchases and rummaged in the purse hidden in the sash that belted the flapping robe that his his light armor. "Here," he said, holding out a silver danaq. "Buy bread from the bakery there, across the road."

"Too much," said Amram, instantly. "They will say the child stole it."

"Not if he tells the baker that we told the creature to buy bread for the two of us. Fetch us three loaves. Can you count?" Zelikman asked the urchin.

The small spine straightened and the beseeching eyes sharpened. "I can! I can count to one hundred!"

Zelikman reached into the sash again and pulled out a handful of tiny bottles, sealed with wax. "How flasks many have I here?"

"Five!"

"Good. Off with you, now. Bring me all the coppers and the bread."

The urchin ran across the road as though pursued by jackals. The bakery was the largest of the little shops, sheltered by a wizened olive tree, and after a moment, Amram could see what was presumably the proprietor peering out the door over the head of their tattered agent. He waved, and the aproned figure disappeared again. Zelikman hummed briefly in satisfaction and, taking the sack from Amram, bent to transfer the medicines and simples he'd bought to his own baggage.

Amram took a bite of roasted meat. It was kid, and very tasty. "Good," he said. "Did you get what you needed?"

"Most of it." Zelikman straightened and looked across the road. The child erupted out of the doorway, a bundle wrapped in a clean napkin under one elbow and the other fist clenched tight, a big grin revealing several missing teeth. Zelikman's mouth twitched in response: almost a smile. "And here's the rest," he said.


End file.
